: E.W. Hornung
: Mr. Justice Raffles
: Dead Dodo Crime Classics
: 9781508081234
: 1
: CHF 0.70
:
: Krimis, Thriller, Spionage
: English
: 263
: DRM
: PC/MAC/eReader/Tablet
: ePUB
Classic Crime Press presents youMr. Justice Rafflesin a fantastic ebook edition.

 

Mr. Justice Raffles was a 1909 novel written by E.W. Hornung. It featured his popular character A. J. Raffles a well-known cricketer and gentleman thief. It was the fourth and last in his four Raffles books which had begun with The Amateur Cracksman in 1899.

 

Unlike the three previous works, the book was a full-length novel and featured darker elements than the earlier collections of short stories. In it a jaded Raffles is growing increasingly cynical about British high society. He encounters Dan Levy, an unscrupulous moneylender, who manages to entrap a number of young men, mostly sons of the wealthy, by giving them loans and then charging huge amounts of interest. Raffles takes it upon himself to teach Levy a lesson.

 

At the end of Hornung's second Raffles short story collection The Black Mask, Raffles and his companion Bunny Manders volunteer for service in the Second Boer War in 1899 where he was killed at the hands of the Boers. Hornung had intended this as a patriotic finale to his hero's story. However there was great popular demand for the return of the character, and a number of generous publishing offers, and Hornung agreed to write another book.

 

In this he has been compared to Arthur Conan Doyle's decision to resurrect Sherlock Holmes after he had been killed falling over the Reichenbach Falls. Doyle had managed this by revealing that Holmes had actually survived the falls, while Hornung set Mr. Justice Raffles before the events of the Boer War. The comparison between the resurrections of Holmes and Raffles is made interesting by the fact that Doyle and Hornung were brothers-in-law. Indeed prior to resurrecting Holmes, Doyle had used much the same technique, demand had called for another Holmes story, so the book he wrote to meet this demand The Hound of the Baskervilles was set prior to Holmes's 'demise'.

CHAPTER I: AN INAUGURAL BANQUET


..................

RAFFLES HAD VANISHED FROM THE face of the town, and even I had no conception of his whereabouts until he cabled to me to meet the 7.31 at Charing Cross next night. That was on the Tuesday before the ‘Varsity match, or a full fortnight after his mysterious disappearance. The telegram was from Carlsbad, of all places for Raffles of all men! Of course there was only one thing that could possibly have taken so rare a specimen of physical fitness to any such pernicious spot. But to my horror he emerged from the train, on the Wednesday evening, a cadaverous caricature of the splendid person I had gone to meet.

“Not a word, my dear Bunny, till I have bitten British beef!” said he, in tones as hollow as his cheeks. “No, I’m not going to stop to clear my baggage now. You can do that for me to-morrow, Bunny, like a dear good pal.”

“Any time you like,” said I, giving him my arm. “But where shall we dine?

Kellner’s? Neapolo’s? The Carlton or the Club?”

But Raffles shook his head at one and all.

“I don’t want to dine at all,” he said. “I know what I want!”

And he led the way from the station, stopping once to gloat over the sunset across Trafalgar Square, and again to inhale the tarry scent of the warm wood-paving, which was perfume to his nostrils as the din of its traffic was music to his ears, before we came to one of those political palaces which permit themselves to be included in the list of ordinary clubs. Raffles, to my surprise, walked in as though the marble hall belonged to him, and as straight as might be to the grill-room where white-capped cooks were making things hiss upon a silver grill. He did not consult me as to what we were to have. He had made up his mind about that in the train. But he chose the fillet steaks himself, he insisted on seeing the kidneys, and had a word to say about the fried potatoes, and the Welsh rarebit that was to follow. And all this was as uncharacteristic of the normal Raffles (who was least fastidious at the table) as the sigh with which he dropped into the chair opposite mine, and crossed his arms upon the cloth.

“I didn’t know you were a m